Lonely Planet: If you want to see the most beautiful gardens of China and the most gorgeous women of China, take a trip to Suzhou.
The train is crowded as usual; remember we are in the middle of the most important Chinese holiday. We were seated with 4 other travelers; everyone was busy glancing through magazines or playing cards - Chinese love to spend time playing games: cards, Chinese chess, mahjong, dice etc. – as Julien and I were brainfucking. He was trying to solve his new Chinese brain twister and I stayed more traditional, solving Sudoku puzzles of my Black Belt Sudoku book. The kid next to me was quite amazed by me using my left hand to place senseless numbers in a senseless grid. Niu rou mi fan (let’s say this was his name, actually it means “rice with beef”, but I can’t remember his name so keep on track) started questioning me in Chinese about who I was, what I was doing and so on. I ended up trying to explain the principles of Sudoku to my little buddy, but failed under the pressure of people around laughing at me speaking Chinese (as usual, may I add). We changed the subject and started Julien's favorite game: guessing Chinese characters in a newspaper. People around laughed again.. Hell with it buddy, why don’t you try to read the English foreword of my Sudoku book? Oh can’t you guess more than 5 words? ..Hmm alright (hehehe).
We arrive to Suzhou around 10pm, it seems like there are no public buses around. As we were staring at the bus information board, a man approached us…
…what would have happened next in France…
Noticing that we are lost, the guy claims that he knows where our hotel is and proposes to guide us. We walk through dark and narrow lanes, suspicious. 10 men come out of nowhere and fight us to death. Once they have screwed us, our guide and his friends disappear with our bags, phones and wallets.
…what would have happened next in Turkey…
Noticing that we are lost, the guy claims that he knows where our hotel is and proposes to guide us. We walk through dark and narrow lanes, suspicious. We finally get to our hotel, relieved. The man helps us to our room, translating what ever we need, without dropping that friendly smile on his face. Once settled, he asks us whether we are hungry or thirsty and takes us to a restaurant. Last thing we remember: he chooses the meal for us… The next morning, we get up in a bathtub full of ice, with a missing kidney.
You love shitty clichés don’t you?
Here is what happened in China…
Our man, David Sun (that’s his real name) noticed our distrust and insisted on taking the bus with us, telling us about Suzhou, the history and the places we should not miss. He felt so sorry when he understood the first hotel he took us to was not the one we had booked. We walked 15 minutes more; it was almost around midnight when we finally made it to our hotel. He came with us to check the rooms, and was the only one of us three not happy about it. “The shower is not even in the room guys! I’m 35 years old and I earn my own money. Let me pay the difference for you to have a room with a shower in it, please!”. We had to fight 20 minutes to keep is hand away from his wallet. Then, we went to a restaurant all together, discovered the Cai dan (menu) and ordered while David Sun kept talking about Suzhou. I finally told him about the “beautiful girls in Suzhou” thing, thus I got my answer full of humor: “I don’t think Suzhou has the most beautiful girls in China. My wife is from Suzhou, you know what I mean? If you guys are done, I would like to take you to a night club to have beers”.
Indeed, the night club had an entrance fee and the beers were quite expensive, but he kept telling us about China, showing his happiness of meeting foreigners while fighting to keep our hands away from our wallets, even though we were not really fighting back. However, we were not listening to him anymore. Since 3 months we had been in China, and it was the very first time we had stepped into a nightclub that you can actually call “night club”. Sexy women, more women than men, hell of a sound system roaring Sean Paul, Chemical brothers and Mister Oizo, women who like foreigners. We forgot about David Sun and went to hit the dance floor. Two hours later I had the decency to ask David whether he wanted to stay or go: “I would like to now”. Over.
Thus, we went back to our hotel, surprised by our host, cherishing our positive thoughts about China and longing to discover Suzhou. Of course, the same could have happened in France or in Turkey, don’t you be mad. It’s just that I have never seen such friendliness in Turkey, even though Turkish people are very kind and are willing to make other people love their country. Well, in France, I cannot imagine happening even the one tenth of this story.
The train is crowded as usual; remember we are in the middle of the most important Chinese holiday. We were seated with 4 other travelers; everyone was busy glancing through magazines or playing cards - Chinese love to spend time playing games: cards, Chinese chess, mahjong, dice etc. – as Julien and I were brainfucking. He was trying to solve his new Chinese brain twister and I stayed more traditional, solving Sudoku puzzles of my Black Belt Sudoku book. The kid next to me was quite amazed by me using my left hand to place senseless numbers in a senseless grid. Niu rou mi fan (let’s say this was his name, actually it means “rice with beef”, but I can’t remember his name so keep on track) started questioning me in Chinese about who I was, what I was doing and so on. I ended up trying to explain the principles of Sudoku to my little buddy, but failed under the pressure of people around laughing at me speaking Chinese (as usual, may I add). We changed the subject and started Julien's favorite game: guessing Chinese characters in a newspaper. People around laughed again.. Hell with it buddy, why don’t you try to read the English foreword of my Sudoku book? Oh can’t you guess more than 5 words? ..Hmm alright (hehehe).
We arrive to Suzhou around 10pm, it seems like there are no public buses around. As we were staring at the bus information board, a man approached us…
…what would have happened next in France…
Noticing that we are lost, the guy claims that he knows where our hotel is and proposes to guide us. We walk through dark and narrow lanes, suspicious. 10 men come out of nowhere and fight us to death. Once they have screwed us, our guide and his friends disappear with our bags, phones and wallets.
…what would have happened next in Turkey…
Noticing that we are lost, the guy claims that he knows where our hotel is and proposes to guide us. We walk through dark and narrow lanes, suspicious. We finally get to our hotel, relieved. The man helps us to our room, translating what ever we need, without dropping that friendly smile on his face. Once settled, he asks us whether we are hungry or thirsty and takes us to a restaurant. Last thing we remember: he chooses the meal for us… The next morning, we get up in a bathtub full of ice, with a missing kidney.
You love shitty clichés don’t you?
Here is what happened in China…
Our man, David Sun (that’s his real name) noticed our distrust and insisted on taking the bus with us, telling us about Suzhou, the history and the places we should not miss. He felt so sorry when he understood the first hotel he took us to was not the one we had booked. We walked 15 minutes more; it was almost around midnight when we finally made it to our hotel. He came with us to check the rooms, and was the only one of us three not happy about it. “The shower is not even in the room guys! I’m 35 years old and I earn my own money. Let me pay the difference for you to have a room with a shower in it, please!”. We had to fight 20 minutes to keep is hand away from his wallet. Then, we went to a restaurant all together, discovered the Cai dan (menu) and ordered while David Sun kept talking about Suzhou. I finally told him about the “beautiful girls in Suzhou” thing, thus I got my answer full of humor: “I don’t think Suzhou has the most beautiful girls in China. My wife is from Suzhou, you know what I mean? If you guys are done, I would like to take you to a night club to have beers”.
Indeed, the night club had an entrance fee and the beers were quite expensive, but he kept telling us about China, showing his happiness of meeting foreigners while fighting to keep our hands away from our wallets, even though we were not really fighting back. However, we were not listening to him anymore. Since 3 months we had been in China, and it was the very first time we had stepped into a nightclub that you can actually call “night club”. Sexy women, more women than men, hell of a sound system roaring Sean Paul, Chemical brothers and Mister Oizo, women who like foreigners. We forgot about David Sun and went to hit the dance floor. Two hours later I had the decency to ask David whether he wanted to stay or go: “I would like to now”. Over.
Thus, we went back to our hotel, surprised by our host, cherishing our positive thoughts about China and longing to discover Suzhou. Of course, the same could have happened in France or in Turkey, don’t you be mad. It’s just that I have never seen such friendliness in Turkey, even though Turkish people are very kind and are willing to make other people love their country. Well, in France, I cannot imagine happening even the one tenth of this story.
